Red Dwarf: Warts and All
by CyborgGarfield
Summary: Lister wants to see his kids so the entire crew Holly Hops into their universe but get sucked through a time hole and end up meeting some very different kids altogether. RD:HP X:Over.
1. Chapter 1

**CyborgGarfield's Red Dwarf**

**Fan Fiction # 3:**

**Red Dwarf - (Hog)Warts and All.**

"Warning, There's another Cross-Over Warning going on! It's still going on!"

**Three Million years from Earth, the mining ship Red Dwarf.**

**It's crew:**

**Dave Lister: The last human being alive.**

**Arnold Rimmer: A hologram of Lister's dead bunk mate.**

**The android named Kryten that they picked up in deep space.**

**And the creature that evolved from Frankenstein, the ship's cat.**

**Message ends…**

**Additional:**

**It's astounding, time is fleeting  
Madness takes its toll  
But listen closely, not for very much longer  
I've got to keep control…**

**Sorry, I've just been going through some old movie vids and I just can get that song out of my head!**

Dave Lister, the last human being alive in the universe (but only, it seems, in this particular reality or dimension) was sitting on his bunk looking at a photo of his twins. He missed them really badly. He didn't miss the pain he had to go through to give birth to them, he didn't miss the commotion they caused when they were still on his version of Red Dwarf and he certainly didn't miss having to be responsible for them 24/7. But Jim and Bexley were on his mind more and more lately and he really wanted to see them.

He sat up quickly and smacked his head on the top of the bunk. "Smeg! That really hurt" he said, the photo still in his hand.

"Holly" he shouted. "Are you there Holly?"

The face of the Hologrammatic Artificially Intelligent Computer with an IQ of 6000 that controlled the comings and goings of Red Dwarf came up on the vid screen and said "its 9pm ship time Dave."

People always thought 6000 seemed like a fairly large IQ, even for a computer. But Holly always had an answer for them; he would merely say "6000 isn't really a large IQ. It's just the same IQ as 12,000 football umpires."

"I didn't ask you what the smeggin' time was Holly."

"Are you sure, I could have sworn you said 'Holly what's the time?'"

"No" said Lister, turning his head to its side and looking confused. "I just asked if you were there."

"Well, obviously I'm here, Dave. I'm always here! Where the heck do you think I would be, on the bog?"

"You're in a rather smug-git kind of mood aren't you Holl, what's wrong?"

'Nothing Dave, I'm fine."

"C'mon, Holl, I always know when you're in one of your weird smeggin' moods."

"How" said the AI with his own version of confusion written on his face.

"It's easy; you always answer our calls to you with the ship's time, and we never ask you that particular question."

"Why not?" asked Holly.

"Because you never give us the right smeggin' time, that's why!"

"That's slander that is! I'll have you know my atomic clock is accurate to within, ooh, lets see, 3 or 4 hours."

"That's not what I would call accurate, Holl."

"Well excuse me for living" said Holly as he poked his tongue out and blew Lister a raspberry.

"Thanks for nothing, Holl."

"So what was it you wanted, Dave, if it wasn't the time?"

"I want to visit my kids" said the only person ever to get his money back from the Odour Eater people.

"Why" asked Holly. "Those little buggers were a bigger pain in posterior than the Cat is. At least when he made one of my systems go haywire, it was an accident."

"I just want to see them Holl. There my own flesh and blood, I gave birth to them, I want to see them."

"Alright, I'll get the skutters to get the Holly Hop Drive" said Holly.

"Get them to put it in Starbug, Holl. The others might not want to go. You know?"

"Shall I tell the others what you're doing?"

"Just get them to meet me in my quarters and I'll tell them Holl."

"OK Dave."

Lister was thinking about what he was going to say when he heard Holly's voice over the ship-wide intercom.

"_This is a Red Dwarf Announcement - Would all the members of the Red Dwarf crew please meet third technician David Lister in his quarters now – This is not an emergency but prompt action would be appreciated."_

"Smart-alec git" said Lister under his breathe.

A few minutes later, Dave's bunk mate, Arnold Rimmer – Dead person, hard light hologram and warm gazpacho soup lover ran into the room and said, quite manically "Lister, what's the matter?"

"Nothing's wrong Rimmer. Didn't you hear Holly say it wasn't an emergency?" said Lister.

"Yes but I thought, well I hoped, well, never mind. What do you want?" said Rimmer looking very disappointed for some reason.

"You can wait for the other's to get here.

Kryten came in about a minute later but it was a good half an hour before the Cat sauntered in, doing his little dance and saying "owwwwwww! Yea! Yea! Yea!" I'm here, feed me!"

"Didn't you hear Holly, Cat?" said Lister, really smegged off that the Cat took so long.

"Of course I did curry-puff!" said the Cat, combing his eyebrows with a toothbrush. "I'm here aren't I?"

"You took your sweet smegging time you demented mouse-trap" said Rimmer.

"We were beginning to worry, Cat" said Kryten who looked at the others, realised his mistake, and said "well I was worried Mr Cat, sir."

"Right Lister, we're all here" said Rimmer, arms folded and nostrils flared. "What is it you wanted?"

"I'm going to visit my kids" he said.

"You're what?"

"Holly's installed the Holly Hop Drive in Starbug and I'm going to visit my kids!"

"Can I come?" said the Cat. "Those kids were a lot of fun; they kept getting the blame for all the wires I kept knocking out of their sockets when I was chasing space weevils."

"That was you?" said Holly, obviously displeased.

"Um, err…" the cat muttered, trying to get out of his last statement. Then he smiled and said "No!"

"But you just said it was Cat" said Lister looking confused.

"I did not! It must have been my twin."

"You haven't got a twin you mentally disturbed moggy!" said Rimmer.

Before the discussion could degrade much further Lister spoke up and said "Well I'm going to see my kids and I'm going now – who's coming?"

"I'll come Dave, I'll transfer myself into Starbug" said Holly.

"I will" said the Cat.

"I'll come too Mr Lister, it'll be nice to see some different faces for a while."

"You getting a bit sick of our ugly mugs are you Kryten?" said Lister, smiling like a chipmunk who had just found a tree packed with nuts.

"Well, to be honest sir, yes!"

"Well I'm staying" said Rimmer firmly. The last thing I need is those brats of your fiddling with my light bee."

"Oi! They're not brats, Rimmer" said Lister. "They're just, easily bored."

"That's what they said about the Son of Sam, Lister."

"Who's he then?"

"You know, that guy from the twenty first century whose dad was called Sam."

The other's looked at Rimmer and wondered what the smeg he was talking about.

"What are you talking about, grease stain?" said the Cat.

"Never mind that tot, let him stay. If Red Dwarf gets pinched again he'll be all on his own with rogue simulants, GELFs or more psychotic nannos. C'mon guys!"

Rimmer's face turned from smug-git to panicky in a micro-second and he changed his tune rather quickly, as usual.

"Umm, I've changed my mind Listy. I'd really love to see those wonderful kiddies of yours."


	2. Chapter 2

The moods aboard the good-ship Starbug were mixed. They ranged from "I'm gunna see my kids! Yee Harr!" to "This is a really, really smeggy idea!"

The Cat piloted the bug away from Red Dwarf so it wouldn't be caught up in what Holly called the "Holly Zone;" a field of about 500 kilometres that would take anything else within that range with them when they travelled inter-dimensionally; and then they all prepared to Holly Hop.

Is everybody ready?" Holly asked, not really caring if they were or not.

The four non-senile life-forms on board all looked at each other, mouthed "are we doing the right thing" silently, then shrugged their shoulders and said that they were.

But they were really actually extremely petrified.

Then they turned around and watched the Holly Hop drive-box with trepidation.

"OK" said Holly. "Holly Hop activated, countdown begins. Five… Four… Two…"

"You missed three again Holly" remarked Rimmer, smugly.

"Holly ignored him and continued the countdown.

"… One; Holly-Hop!

There was a brief flash of light then nothing. Lister asked "did it work Holl?

"Of course it worked Dave" said the computer.

"How do you know Holly?" Dave asked.

"Well, for one. That time hole wasn't there before."

"WHAT TIME HOLE!" the rest of the crew yelled.

"That green one, right in front of us" Holly replied in a smug way.

They all turned and looked though the window.

"Smeg!" said Lister. "Not another one."

"Smeg!" said Rimmer. Why is this one green?"

"Oh dear" said Kryten. "Damn my panic chip!"

"Wow!" said the Cat. "Green; I can live with green, it even matches my outfit."

And that was the last thing they heard before being sucked into the time hole to smeg-knows where and when.

* * *

In a high tower of an ancient castle an old, kindly looking man with a very long, incredibly white, beard and hair sat at an antique desk; writing on a piece of parchment with a quill made from an eagle's feather. He was deep in thought and stopped writing occasionally to look up at the pictures on his wall.

The thing was; the pictures were also looking at him. And they were moving!

"Haven't you finished writing that spell yet, Albus?" said the picture of another wise looking man, but with much shorter, and less greying hair.

"My dear Headmaster Dippet , this particular protection charm is quite difficult as I am actually making it up as I go along. Please be a little more patient."

The picture of Armando Dippet, who was the Headmaster at Hogwarts before Dumbledore, simply huffed and went back to whatever it was that he was doing.

Dumbledore just smiled and went back to his writing.

Not long after that the sweet trill of a bird in song began. It was unlike any other birdsong you could imagine, as it came from the rarest of all birds; the Phoenix.

"Ah, Fawkes; your songs get more beautiful every day and…"

The song of the Phoenix turned into a slightly annoyed squawk. Dumbledore looked a little perplexed for a moment then realised what the bird was trying to tell him.

He looked at his extremely old pocket watch and said "yes, of course; you're right. They should be here any second now."

Dumbledore stood up behind his desk and walked over to the window. As he scanned the, sky a massive, bright green vortex appeared in the night sky.

"There's the Time Hole, right on the mark and… Look Fawkes, here they come now.'

* * *

In another tower of the same castle, an eleven year old boy sat on the wide window ledge looking out into the darkness, wondering. Wondering about his new life, his new friends; wondering about his new school and the fact that he was a wizard.

"A wizard" he said as he turned to look at his sleeping bunk mates.

Of course, they all knew who they were. They grew up in wizarding families. Some were from families where both parents were magical; others had a mum who was a witch and a dad who was just an everyday ordinary person; and a number of them had a dad who was a wizard and a mum who wasn't magical.

And some, like his friend Hermione, came from a family with no magical background at all.

This still confused the heck out of poor Harry Potter, whose mum and dad were both magical, but died when Harry was a baby and he was brought up by his mum's sister and her husband.

And it sucked!

They treated him worse than a dog and he only ever got to wear his cousin's hand-me-down clothes.

But now he was at Hogwarts and he had never felt more at home anywhere else in his life.

The thought of his "family" – the Dursleys, was beginning to make him nauseous. So he opened the window and looked back outside, taking the cool, crisp night air deep into his lungs.

Harry was just about to go to bed when something appeared in the night sky.

"Wow!" Harry said in a whispered scream. "What's that?"

He watched as the green vortex got bigger and bigger until Harry thought it might be big enough to swallow up everything.

He ran over to his friend Ron's bed and began to shake him.

"Ron! Ron!" Harry whisper screamed.

Ron Weasly woke up with a start and his bright red hair and freckles were almost glowing in the darkness.

"What! No! I don't like spiders!" he said half asleep.

"Ron, wake up" said Harry. "Ron, you have to see this!"

"It's still dark, what could you possibly see out there at this time of night?" said Ron groggily.

But Harry grabbed him by his arm and dragged him to the window. "Look! What is that? Is it magical?"

Ron rubbed his eyes and stared out of the window.

"Whoa! It's a big green swirly thing in space."

"I know that Ron, have you ever seen anything like this before?" Harry asked, frustrated with his friend's lack of concern..

But poor old Ron was mesmerised, he just stood there with his jaw wide open and a glazed look on his face.

"RON!" Harry yelled as loudly as he dared right into his friend's ear.

"Ouch" Ron said, holding his had to his ear. "What did you do that for, Harry?"

Harry smiled and pushed his glasses back along his nose. "I said have you ever seen anything like that before?"

Ron looked back out the window and said "no, but forget that, look!"

Harry looked at where Ron was pointing, the centre of the vortex.

"Something's coming out Harry" said Ron, trembling. "Wh… What is it?"

Harry concentrated and then something in him knew what it was.

"Harry?" said Ron, whining.

"It's what the Muggles call an Unidentified Flying Object, Ron. It's… …a space ship!"

* * *

"Status report!" aid Lister as he and the Cat fought the ship, trying to control the uncontrollable.

"Main engines are off line" said Kryten. "Thrusters at half power and the light that says "Please fasten your seatbelts" has blown a globe."

Rimmer looked at the android once voted "most likely to kill his crew" and said "you really are a smeg head aren't you Kryten."

"Coming out of the clouds, now!" said the Cat, wishing he'd brought those damn brown trousers with him.

"Smeg" said Lister, knowing the answer to his next question before he even asked it. "What's that?"

It's a castle Mr Lister" said Kryten. "And it looks very old."

"Were the smeg are we Kryten."

"Well, Sir. According to the Navicomp, it's Earth; again!"

"Earth?" Lister asked. "Are you sure, Kryten? What year is it?"

"It's the year 1991, Sir"

"Is there anything about this year we should know about, Kryten" asked the heroic Ace Rimmer's dimensional twin. "Are we going to run smack into a war, or a coup or wose, an election?"

Kryten search his data banks for an answer to Rimmer's question. You could tell when he was doing this because his eyes went all squinty and his shoulders hunched up like he had constipation.

"Well sir, apart from a small skirmish in the Middle East, the fall of the Soviet Union, a volcanic eruption in the Philippines and a teensy Cholera outbreak in Peru; there's not much really happening."

"Oh, good" aid Rimmer looking panicky. "So there's nothing to worry about then?"

Lister had a flash of intelligence and asked, "But Kryten; if this is a parallel dimension, maybe these things didn't happen; maybe it's a better world than ours?"

"Yea, right Chipmunk Cheeks" the Cat quipped. "I've read up on Earth history, I doubt anything like that would ever happen in any of the Earth universes. You guys are just so intent on killing each other its nuts!"

"Says a member of a race that went to war over the colour of the hats for the donut diner" smiled Lister, sarcastically.

"Oh yea" said the Cat, embarrassed. "I forgot."

"Sorry to interrupt your United Nations meeting, gentlemen" said Rimmer, all panicky like. "But I think we're going to crash."

Their attention once again turned to their dilemma and the Cat yelled "we're gunna hit the tree."

"All power to the thrusters, Kryten" yelled Lister as he desperately tried to manoeuvre the 'Bug clear of the biggest, most deformed tree he had ever seen.

"I've never seen a willow grow like that before" said Rimmer.

"Urg!" said the Cat, disgusted with what he saw. "That's the ugliest tree I have ever seen."

"Cat, forget what it looks like, man" said Rimmer who was sweating like he had just had a volcano hot curry and forgot to buy any lager. "Help me fly this thing!"

How they missed the tree they'll never know. But unfortunately they didn't miss the ground. Starbug landed with such a force that all the landing stanchions snapped, one main engine hung by a single bolt and their only bottle of salad cream fell out of the fridge and made a huge, gooey mess.

Oh, and a piece of the 'bug broke of and shredded the Cat's shirt. As you can imagine, he was devastated.

"Oh, my god" cried the Cat. "My absolute favourite shirt in the entire galaxy is ruined."

"It's a small hole, Cat" said Lister, checking himself for injuries as he tried to console the Cat. "With your sewing skills, you will never even notice that that hole was ever there."

The Cat stopped crying, smiled, and said "hey! You're right Gerbil breath. I'm a tailoring genius, thanks!"

Lister smiled sarcastically and checked on the others. "Kryten, Rimmer! Are you guys ok?"

"Yes, I'm fine, thank god" said Rimmer, smirking smugly.

"I'm fine too, Mr Lister" said Kryten, groggily; despite the fact that his left arm waving at him from the other side of the cock pit.

"Kryten" Lister yelled; his concern for his robotic friend obvious. "Your arm's off!"

"No it's not" said Kryten.

"Yes it is, man!"

"It's just a flesh wound."

"But your arm is over there waving at you!"

"'Tis but a scratch" Kryten said, trying to smile.

Rimmer was beginning to lose patience and said "can we stop the 'Monty Python' references please?"

The Cat laughed, Lister smirked and Kryten fainted.

Well, I think he fainted. Can robots faint?

Lister rushed over and said "are you ok, Kryters?"

"Of course I am, Mr President" said Kryten as he sat up with a jolt. "Just continue what you and Miss Monroe were doing and don't worry about me." And he fell back to the floor just as quickly.

"We'll attend to him later" said Lister. "Let's see what it's like outside. Cat, hit the cloaking device."

With the ship cloaked three of the crew of Starbug began their descent to Mother Earth.


End file.
